The carriage of stores, such as ordinance, fuel, sensor and camera pods and the like, on an external surface of an aircraft is well known in the aviation industry, and is typically effected through the use of surface-mounted, cantilevered “pylons” that couple to the aircraft's structure, and to which the stores are then attached, either fixedly or releasably. The use of streamlined fairings extending between the skin of the aircraft and the stores to reduce parasitic drag of the pylon during flight is also known.
In modern, high-performance military aircraft, e.g., those with smoothly changing shapes, such as the so-called “Blended-Wing-Body” (“BWB”) family of aircraft, the space on the underside of the aircraft's fuselage between its equipment bays and its engine nacelles is relatively narrow, thereby limiting the space available for the external carriage of stores. For example, in the case of the Boeing B-1B bomber, all pylon stations have a common electromechanical interface configuration. As is typical, the aircraft “moldline” at the left side pylon stations is a mirror image of the moldline at the right side pylon stations. However, a common pylon configuration used at all front-to-rear stations on each side of the aircraft does not produce an optimal weapons loadout due to the variety of clearance constraints imposed between the loaded pylons and the doors of the equipment bays and/or the engine nacelles. Depending on the pylon locations and the types of stores carried internally and externally, the pylons may need to be oriented vertically, or alternatively, to be canted outboard somewhat, to provide for an optimal external stores loadout. Additionally, uploading internal stores into or releasing them from the aircraft's bays typically requires that the bay doors be opened fully, which precludes the presence of conventional, vertically oriented pylons adjacent to the doors.
Accordingly, a need exists for a “universal” pylon that is capable of attaching at any station on either side of an aircraft like the B-1B, and that is also compatible with a wide variety of internal/external stores and the associated clearance constraints unique to each pylon station.